Sean C. Morgan
The city Public Safety Committee is weighing options on what to do about drinking in public and is considering rules prohibiting alcohol and limiting smoking to designated areas in parks.
Councilor Greg Mahler held up his phone at the committee’s meeting on July 14 and explained that this process is meant to prevent what was depicted in a photo he had on the phone. The photo showed a drunk passed out on the curb, his leg hanging off the curb, in front of the Sweet Home Post Office during the Sportsman’s Holiday Parade on July 11. It sparked a long Facebook discussion.
City Attorney Robert Snyder presented examples of ordinances other cities are using, but he expressed confusion as to how the ordinances exist in a state that doesn’t allow cities to prohibit drinking alcohol in public.
In 1971, state law began recognizing alcoholism as a disease instead of a crime, he said, and that’s when the limitation on local ordinances arose.
“The state says you can’t pass a law or an ordinance to prohibit public drinking,” he said, except in places where it is generally prohibited, such as parks. But if it’s prohibited “everywhere,” the “exception eats up the rule.”
Another problem Snyder foresees is illustrated by three men standing outside, one with a Monster energy drink, another with a can of pop and the other with a Coors beer. An ordinance would prohibit one from opening his drink, singling out that individual even though he isn’t disorderly or drunk.
Police Chief Jeff Lynn pointed out that the one drink is an intoxicant.
And the new marijuana law does exactly the same thing, prohibiting the use of marijuana in public, Snyder said. “I don’t know if that’s the same thing as a can of beer. He could be sober, and in Albany, he’s committing a crime.”
“It would be a benefit to the community,” Lynn said about prohibiting the use of alcohol in public.
Snyder said that the drunk in the photo Mahler mentioned could be addressed by other laws.
Linda Iljin, who asked the council to consider an ordinance to limit public drinking, said “he’s drinking through the day, so wherever he happens to land is where he’s going to be.”
That day it happened to be the parade, she said. People like him smoke and drink all day. They urinate in public and they don’t bathe.
“These people don’t care how we feel, and they have free rein to do it,” Iljin said. “They should go and remove themselves and hide in the woods to do it. In every city I know of, you’re not allowed to drink in public. If we want to make it a better place to live, these are the kinds of things we have to clean up.”
Councilor Jeff Goodwin said the city doesn’t need to prohibit alcohol on all streets – maybe just in parks and downtown streets.
“Obviously, (that) makes your argument more stable with state law,” Snyder said.
“If you take that approach, we’ll just be herding cats around,” Lynn said. They’ll find out where it is permissible and drink there.
“It seems to me that (the state law) is what needs to be changed,” Iljin said, suggesting that it would be worth going against the state law since no one has been challenging it. “Every city has rights. We have rights as human beings. The laws should be structured to let the rest of us live here.”
They should make the drunks go hide “so they’re not troubling us,” she said. “It’s just I wish they cared a little bit how it hurts me.”
Snyder told the committee he would like to talk to city attorneys in other cities and learn more about Albany’s new ordinance and then return to the Public Safety Committee with further information.
Committee members present at the meeting were Councilors Dave Trask, Mahler and Bruce Hobbs.
In other business, the committee also discussed a recommendation from the Parks Board to ban alcohol from parks except by permit and to limit smoking and tobacco use to smoking areas.
The proposed ordinance does not include vaping.
The ordinance will appear before the City Council later.